


Still Life

by orphan_account



Category: Hollyoaks
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, McDean, jpc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watching you, waiting...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Life

**Author's Note:**

> When we knew for sure Craig would return I wrote a couple of little ficlets based on spoilers and spoilers pics. Here's one.
> 
> (Summer 2008)

STILL LIFE

 

Well at least he hadn’t said no straight off.

He looked like he wanted to, but curiosity got the better of him and he’d reluctantly agreed to have a drink with him at the SUbar.

He was looking well, hardly changed really, maybe a little older, not so fresh and innocent as he’d seemed in those heady days. God only two years since they’d met – how had they crammed so much into those few years?

He spoke first: “It’s still over.”

“I heard about your engagement. I’m not going to lie – bit surprised, John Paul. Can’t have known him that long. Guess it’s love then.”

Craig was watching him without seeming to and saw the signs he’d been looking for – that brief blink before the lie was told. “Yeah – I love him.” No explanation, no clarification, just the facts, ma’am. The thing with John Paul is that the was so bad at lying that he couldn’t expand on the story for fear of not being able to maintain the lie, so the fewer words? The more obvious – to anyone who knew him well – the lie.

“Why marriage though? You’re 19, bit soon to be getting yourself hitched for life, mate.”

“Well you didn’t seem to think so when you got engaged to Sarah.”

Good – now they were getting somewhere. “I was an idiot. Biggest mistake of my life.”

They held each other’s eye – no need to expand at all on that: John Paul got the message loud and clear.

But he’d always been a stubborn bastard. With a smirk he said: “So you’re ready to thank me for sending that text then?”

“Didn’t I already?”

He was winning this, he could sense it: John Paul wanted him to that was clear, but what was just as clear was that he had no intention of making it easy.

“Not so’s you’d notice, no.”

He let that go. He’d never expected this to be easy and he was prepared to wait, patient as a spider in her web, watching the unwary fly make its way closer and closer to the point of no return.

“I’m not going to pretend, John Paul, I came here to ask you to give me another chance. I didn’t know you’d be involved in another relationship and of course, seeing as you’re not free I will back off.” He rose, lowered his voice to a lover’s caress. “Seeing you again has made me know I was right to keep you in my heart, right to grow to love you even more than I ever thought possible, but it’s because I love you that I will never, ever put you through anything like I did last year. So I’m going to leave it, allow you to find that happiness that I was unable to give you last year. I’m not going to insult either of us by pretending that I can just be mates with you – I can’t, but I hold nothing but affection in my heart, John Paul. Always. Forever.”

He walked away without looking back.

Three days later John Paul came to him.

He had a lot to say.

Craig listened to it all.

He made his promises and John Paul accepted them then made some of his own.


End file.
